Full line-up announced as Stephen K Amos takes over thespian chats in Princes Street Gardens
 Amos picks up after Skinner drops out By Thom Dibdin
Stephen K Amos is to take over hosting duties on Assembly Theatre’s daily Talk Show, following Frank Skinner’s withdrawal from the Spiegeltent show in Princes Street Gardens
Running through to Sunday 29 August, the hour long show features intimate conversations with such Edinburgh fringe luminaries as Steven Berkoff, most performed living playwright on the Fringe, who opens the series today, Wednesday 11 August with Linda Marlowe. Jason Byrne, takes over as a sub for Amos on 26 and 27 August.
A spokesperson for Assembly emphasised the Talk Show’s strong role in the venue’s 30th anniversary celebrations and its links with the various guests over those years: “Assembly’s aim has always been to support a programme of excellence and the remarkable talent of countless performers. … Continue reading Æ News – Amos to host Assembly’s Talk Show
All the Edinburgh Fringe iPhone apps reviewed
By Thom Dibdin
Updates came in thick and fast for the handful of iPhone apps which launched early for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe – with more venues promising apps for their own programmes, and even more updates in the pipeline. So I succumbed to Fringe madness, went off to see and review my shows, and rather left this on the back burner until a few more apps and their promised updates arrived.
They haven’t materialised, so here’s the story so far: … Continue reading App-tastic Edinburgh Fringe
New upgrades scheduled to be available by August 4
 The current version does not include a search facility for venue listings By Thom Dibdin
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has announced that the free Fringe iPhone app released on Wednesday will receive substantial upgrades before the start of the Fringe.
As revealed exclusively in a review in the Annals of Edinburgh Stage, the app begins to make sense of the vast amount of data in the Fringe programme. However, the review expressed concerns that the app is still some way short of its true potential, particularly in its search facilities to access the 40,254 performances of 2,453 shows in 259 venues.
Gavin Dutch, managing director of Loc8 Solutions the Edinburgh-based company behind the app, told the Annals that many of the concerns would be addressed in an update released before the start of the Fringe.
Responding directly to the review, he said: “In fact we have already implemented solutions for quite a few of them, including venue search, and search of events at a specific venue. Finding your nearest show will also be much easier as in the update shows can be ordered by distance from your current location, or any other location you choose. … Continue reading Æ News – Edinburgh Fringe iPhone app to get upgrade
Holyrood Amateur Theatre Society stage rare production of Gray’s McGrotty and Ludmilla
 Alasdair Gray's poster for the production By Thom Dibdin
An amateur production of Alasdair Gray’s early play McGrotty and Ludmilla, to be staged this week at the Roxy Arthouse, has benefited from personal input from the playwright.
HATS, the Holyrood Amateur Theatre Society, are staging the production from tonight (Thursday) to Saturday. Loosely based on the Aladdin story, the play follows the adventures of the uncouth and unpolished young Scot Mungo McGrotty amongst the Machiavellian civil service mandarins of 1980s Whitehall. … Continue reading Æ News – HATS doffed to Alasdair Gray
The Annals of Edinburgh Stage puts the Edinburgh Fringe iPhone App through its paces
 The opening page of the new app By Thom Dibdin
The Edinburgh Fringe has launched its much anticipated iPhone app, allowing iPhone users to access the wonders of the Fringe programme, with its 2453 shows in 259 venues, direct from their mobiles.
At first glance its looking good, with quick access from the opening panel to Shows, Venues and My Fringe. Further investigation finds a few surprising drawbacks, however. Not fatal ones, it must be said, and certainly things which should be fixed in the next release.
Sitting at home in Edinburgh, the first thing to find out was the closest production to my front door on a random date: the evening of Thursday 12 August let’s say.
I just happen to know that would be the theatre show Decky Does a Bronco by Grid Iron, in Traverse @ Scotland Yard, nightly at 7.30pm, running from 5 to 21 August.
Finding Decky Does a Bronco is easy: tap shows, tap search and type Decky. Show found. scroll through to the 12th and tap – up comes the listing. Tap the wee star on the bottom and it has been added to my favourites for easy access later. … Continue reading Æ News Review – Edinburgh Fringe launches programme on iPhone app
Hit musical gets rewrite and professional production
 The original 2001 production at the Church Hill Theatre By Thom Dibdin
A stage musical by Edinburgh-based composer Julian Wagstaff takes its first steps towards the West End in September, when a new concert version of Wagstaff’s John Paul Jones will be performed by musicians from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Queen’s Hall.
Wagstaff plans to use the concerts, on September 24 and 25, to raise the profile of John Paul Jones, which recounts the true story of the Dumfries-born lad who became a hero of the American Revolution and is known as the ‘father of the American navy’.
“I am delighted to be working with an ensemble of such quality and renown as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,” Wagstaff told the Annals. “Their musicians will be joined for the concerts by the vocal ensemble Consort of Voices and guest soloists in what promises to be a wonderful night out for music and theatre fans alike.” … Continue reading Æ News – John Paul Jones sails again!
Short Filmhouse season preps audiences for EIF
By Thom Dibdin
 It's Bliss, Opera Australia's production The Edinburgh International Festival are linking up with the Filmhouse next week for On Screen, On Stage, a short season of four films which tie in with productions in this year’s EIF.
The innovative season, running from Sunday 18 through to Sunday 25 July, is described by Filmhouse as “a short season of films to whet your appetite for the upcoming Edinburgh International Festival’s 2010 programme”.
On Screen, On Stage includes two Scottish premieres. Susanna Boehm’s 2009 documentary Porgy and Me follows the cast of the New York Harlem Theatre on their European tour of Porgy and Bess. Following the company from city to city – where they attract stares from startled Austrians – the film draws out the parallels between the opera and the real life experiences of individual singers in a series of deeply personal conversations. … Continue reading News – On Screen On Stage
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 Metropolitan Bar, Picardy Place
Review by Thom Dibdin
Dark and sinister, John Naples-Campbell’s updating of the Greek myths surrounding the end of the Trojan war is given a stark and immersive telling by his random ACT theatre company.
At its best, this is ferocious stuff, which takes its audience deep into the bowels of the destroyed Troy at the end of the nine year-long siege by the Greeks.
The women of the title are, as followers of Greek mythology will be unsurprised to discover, Hecuba Queen of Troy, Cassandra her daughter, Andromache her daughter-in-law and Helen, wife of the Greek Menelaus. It was Helen’s elopement with Hecuba’s son Paris which precipitated the war.
The women pace up and down the darkened basement bar of the Metropolitan into which the audience, divided up by gender, are delivered as if they were prisoners, too. … Continue reading Theatre Review – The Women Of Troy
Police called to murder scene – Women of Troy implicated
 By Thom Dibdin
The reality of using found spaces for theatre productions came home to Edinburgh’s Random ACT theatre company last night during their preview of The Women of Troy at the Metropolitan Bar on Picardy Place.
Members of the public walking past the bar on Wednesday night were so concerned by the noises eminating from the bar that they called the police and no amount of protestations from cast or director could calm them down.
Random ACT director John Naples-Campbell said: “we had ran it without any problems at all and then tonight three people, who heard shouting from the bar, called the police, banged on the fire door shouting ‘we’ve called the police’.”
Having succeeded in opening the firedoor, … Continue reading Theatre Without Walls
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 Daniel Williamson as Juan Perón and Monica Reeves as Eva Péron George Watson’s College
By Thom Dibdin
There is a genuine tune-hummer of a production of Evita up at George Watson’s College this week, one which is strong and forceful where it needs to be – but is also fully-rounded on the musical front.
Minimal and unfussy staging makes good use of side-projected slides and video to help give the whole a well-judged political edge. It shows, without pulling its punches and while exploring the cult of Evita, where Perónism lies on the totalitarian spectrum.
It is music which lies at the heart of the production’s strengths, however. Having a large orchestra is something of a luxury in musical theatre circles and the company makes full use of the depth and texture a 32-strong band can provide – despite the odd wayward note in the more complex parts of the arrangement. … Continue reading Musical Review – Evita
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